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Oh, boy. Three words that began and ended with heartache.
I cocked my head. “She likes your hair?”
“Wrapped around her thighs.” He waggled his eyebrows. “She’s at our Vegas refuge. I’m on my way there now.” He looked back at the list. “What’s a onesie?”
“It’s a jumpsuit thing. Whatever. I just need warm-weather baby clothes, and if you have time to be selective, avoid pink.”
Shea was having a boy, and it would be easier if everything was shared.
“Got it.” He squinted at the paper. “More diapers?”
“Different sizes. I wrote it all down.”
“Yeah, okay.” He tucked the list in his back pocket. “There’s a baby store outside Vegas. I’ll take a few guys, a few trucks. We’ll just clean out the place. I’ll be back in a couple weeks.”
“You’re the best.” I gave him a hug. “Good luck with the girl.”
He hit the button for the elevator and winked at me. “Don’t need luck.”
“Then you might want to pick up some things at the baby store for your…don’t-need-luck future?”
He turned white, his eyes widening, as he stumbled backward into the elevator.
“Repopulation is a hard job, Hunter.” I jogged away, grinning. “But we’ve all gotta do it.”
My next stop was Dr. Belhap’s makeshift office on the east side of the dam. He and three other physicians checked me over, monitored the baby on the ultrasound, and drew my blood. The latter was at my behest. I’d made them draw one pint every day and store it in a just-in-case refrigerator. To study, to cure nymphs, to satisfy certain cravings, whatever might be needed after I was gone.
My guardians had fought me on this. An average person could only donate one pint every fifty-six days, but I had a beyond-average ability to replenish my blood overnight.
After the exam, I had a couple hours to spare until lunch, so I ran the halls, thinking about girl names. I wanted something deep and symbolic, but every idea I came up with sounded clichéd. If the guys already had their own picks, they’d been tight-lipped about it.
A ten minute jog carried me to the generator room. As I passed through it, I sensed Michio’s aura growing stronger. The lab was on the other side of the dam. Why was he over here? I followed the hypnotic pulses, my skin humming and warming when I approached the door of a room the men used for marital arts training. I pushed it open.
Jesse lay on his back on the concrete floor in the center of the large space. Roark sprawled atop him in the opposite direction, face shoved against Jesse’s groin. In our bed, it would’ve been a sixty-nine position. But here, with Michio squatting beside them and barking instructions, it was a Jiu-Jitsu north-south pinning hold. Either way, it was an intimate embrace and sexy-as-fuck.
Michio looked up, unsurprised to see me. He could sense me across the country. Of course he’d tracked my approach. “Everything okay?”
“Always, Doc.” I slipped in, shut the door, and perched on a threadbare couch near the adjacent wall. “Don’t let me interrupt your man things.”
Jesse shoved an arm between Roark’s legs and craned his neck, seemingly working harder to get a glimpse of me than trying to dismount Roark.
Michio scolded Jesse for incorrect positioning, which made Roark laugh and tighten his arms around Jesse’s waist.
“Fuck, you’re a heavy bastard.” Jesse grunted, turned his head, and bit the inside of Roark’s thigh.
“Bloody fecking hell!” Roark jerked away and fell on his back.
Jesse flipped over and scrambled after him, grabbing his legs, then his hips, and assumed a mount position, laughing at Roark’s mistake.
Michio grinned as he watched them. When he met my eyes and his smile softened, it hit me that the three of them had reached the kind of connection that could bolster them through my death. They trusted and depended on one another, fought and fucked together. And they made each other laugh.
They would likely fall in and out of despair in the dark days ahead, but as long as one of them was always standing, he would be able to support the weight of the other two. With that conviction, I would die with a calm spirit, an inner peace, carrying with me a lifetime of smiles.
Of course, there was a piece of me that was absolutely terrified to die. To no longer be part of their relationship. To not be around to watch my daughter grow up. But I tried to keep that fear locked away so it wouldn’t consume the time I had left.
Michio walked them through various techniques, readjusting Jesse’s leg and swatting Roark’s ass when he plowed down on Jesse with brute force instead of practiced technique. I’d taught Roark Jiu-Jitsu when we were holed up in his bunker in England, but he was rusty. And unusually aggressive.
